When I first heard about it, I thought, "Wow, that's like all my favorite game ideas ever, all rolled into one game." You play as a dead soul with no memory of its former life that must learn the rules of a mysterious netherworld (called "the Void,"). As you journey from safe haven to safe haven, color is continuously leeched away from you until you die. To survive, you must find the few remaining sources of color and harvest them, while interacting with characters both beautiful and disturbing.
I got it on sale for $10. (Normal price is $20). In about half an hour, I thought "Wow, this is a really amazingly cool game. And it is, somehow, despite being really cool, really really not fun."
Then I figured out what kind of game I was playing (I thought I was playing an RPG. I sort of was, but mostly I was playing what could best be described as a "first person resource management game." It's sort of like if you were playing StarCraft, as an SCV, in first person. Although that analogy gives you only a basic idea of the mechanics and does nothing to convey what playing the game is actually like). Once I understood the basic rules of managing color and started over, I began enjoying the game immensely.
It's not a game I expect everyone to enjoy, but I want to spread the word to the people who will like it. If you like the following, you should play this game:
1) Resource management. Color is your health, mana, currency, statistics, weaponry and armor. The main mechanics are collecting it and then painting it across the screen in magical glyphs to produce various effects. You also gain different attributes (speed, diplomacy, attack, defense, etc) based on how much color you are storing inside you. Whenever you travel between zones, you lose color, and if you don't make sure to invest it wisely you will die.
2) Dark, creepy surreal imagery. The game is sort of like Myst done by Tim Burton. You're dropped off on a mysterious island and must travel to other mysterious islands, and your primary reason for playing will likely be to simply explore the haunting landscape.
3) Horror Survival games. The company that made the Void did an interview recently in which they talked about the failings of most "horror games", which is that fighting the monsters is one of the most fun parts, which makes them less scary. You CAN fight monsters here, and it can be fun, but every drop of color you spend fighting monsters is gone forever and actually damages the world (attracting more monsters later on). You're usually better off running, and since it's in first person, most of the time you will not see your enemy, you will only hear them flapping their wings and know they are somewhere nearby, until suddenly they pounce on your and your screen turns red and if you're like me you scream like a girl. (I don't have a high tolerance for horror in the slightest, so take that with a grain of salt).
4) You're okay with nudity. The game is a vague allegory on Patriarchy (the exact interpretation of what the designers meant to "say" is up for debate, but they clearly are intending to say something). Half the characters are women who are mostly naked, wrapped in chains of color, who become more naked as you gradually free. This sounds like porn, but for most of the Sisters, their nakedness is almost incidentally and feels natural. I was pretty impressed, actually, the way each Sister has a completely different personality and that their nudity makes a completely different statement. One sister's nudity is purely sexual and tempting (and many male/lesbian players may be tempted to do what she says simply to see her slowly lose her chains and become more naked even though she's clearly selfish and useless), but for other sisters it represents confidence ("Um, yeah, I'm naked. Do you have a problem with that?") or vulnerability, or innocence, or various other things. The women here are more beautiful than the elf chicks in WoW, yet manage to feel far more meaningful.
5) You're okay with being confused a lot. The Sisters don't tell you everything, and neither to the Brothers, and neither does the mysterious voice of color itself. And it's clear that many people (including people giving you the "tutorial") are lying to you about at least some things. Figuring out who (if anybody) to trust is an important part of the game.
6) You're okay with doing things over a lot. The game, even the english version which is supposedly easier, is very hardcore about killing you when you do something wrong. (Usually you were given a warning but sometimes that warning isn't very clear). You'll probably need to start over at least once, and redo a lot of individual sections multiple times until you succeed without wasting too much color.
7) You like games that at least try to have some artistic value. I haven't quite decided what I think the artistic value of the game is, but the fact that I'm still thinking about it is pretty significant, and the game has emotionally impacted me at several different points.
I think the single best target demographic for the game might be someone who like the idea of Bioshock (specifically that it was supposed to be a horror game about scarcity of resources) but found it way too easy. It (coincidentally) also happens to feature characters called Sisters and giant bosses that protect them, which are called Brothers instead of Daddies, but still feel somewhat similar.
[ January 13, 2010, 07:36 PM: Message edited by: Raymond Arnold ]
Posts: 4136 | Registered: Aug 2008
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I should note that the graphics are actually a generation or two behind the times in terms of effects and techniques, (it was made by a very small team, essentially an indie game) but it's still very beautifully put together.
Posts: 4136 | Registered: Aug 2008
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Yeah I bought a whole mess of games during the Steam Holiday Sale, most of which I have yet to finish. (I'm halfway through Dragon Age, Aquaria, and World of Goo. I also ended up with Half Life 2 which I haven't started yet).
Posts: 4136 | Registered: Aug 2008
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My last bump, before I consign this thread to the, um, Void, is to note that the developers of the game have essentially approved piracy as a legitimate way to "demo" the game. (When a torrent appeared on piratebay or wherever, the developers hung out in the comment section, talking about the game and asking that if people enjoyed the demo to please buy the real version). Later on they released an official torrent of some bonus features that were included in the disk version.
So if you were mildly intrigued but didn't feel like forking over the money quite yet, you may consider giving that a try.
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I'm not sure either. They may have felt that having given tacit approval for the torrent they didn't need to spend time on the demo. Creating a functional demo does take at least some time and they have various other localization and bug issues to fix.
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On the other hand, they may have felt a demo would hurt their sales. After all, your first impression was "not fun." If other players new to the game have the same initial reaction, they probably won't play for longer than a few minutes if they aren't trying to get their money's worth.
Posts: 4287 | Registered: Mar 2005
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I'll have to pick it up. I've purchased so many games during this summer sale I don't know how I'm going to be able to play them all. I have gotten Titan Quest, the Titan Quest expansion, Torchlight, Sanctum, X, X2, X3, Magicka, and three or four more I'm forgetting.
Posts: 1937 | Registered: Nov 2006
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I got it as part of a Christmas sale bundle on Steam last year. I'm looking forward to playing it, and I'm thinking I'll likely do so later this summer or in the fall. Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
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